1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electric stringed musical instrument configured to detect vibrations transmitted from a string supported by a body via a bridge and produce an output, and to a method of designing the electric stringed musical instrument.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is conventionally known an electric stringed musical instrument configured to pick up vibrations of strings by means of a pickup sensor to produce a sound of a stringed instrument. For example, Patent Document 1 (Japanese Patent No. 3225856) discloses an electric violin as an electric stringed musical instrument. This violin includes a body for supporting strings via a bridge, and this body is composed of a plurality of layers stacked on one another. Sticky layers are sandwiched between the plurality of layers to reduce a large amount of energy generated by vibrations of the strings and radiated to air as a sound via vibrations of the body, resulting in a smaller or no volume of a sound emitted to air.
Patent Document 2 (Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 60-154299) discloses an electric stringed musical instrument including a member constituted by a stiff base supporter, a bridge suspension, a span, and a bridge crown which are formed integrally with each other. This member is placed on a solid body via a height adjusting mechanism. The bridge crown supports strings, and a pickup constituted by a piezoelectric element is provided between the stiff base supporter and the span. In this electric stringed musical instrument, the bridge suspension has flexibility. Furthermore, this electric stringed musical instrument uses the flexible bridge suspension to transmit energy between vibrations of the strings and the pickup, whereby an instrument sound based on an electric signal obtained by conversion of the pickup is brought closer to a sound of an acoustic stringed musical instrument.